Sue is a poet and fiction writer.
A former physiotherapist and acupuncturist, Sue writes about all kinds of things but has a particular interest in the intersection of medicine and the humanities. … Read more about About

Sue’s latest publications are her fifth book of poetry The Yield and her first novel, Strip. The Yield is longlisted for the 2018 Ockham NZ Book Award for Poetry. Strip was longlisted for the 2017 Ockham NZ Book Award for Fiction.

By Birdlight, a collection of poems remarkable for their inventiveness, grace and range of reference.” – Fiona Farrell, NZ Listener online 1 December 2011

Sea foam at Gemstone Beach

Yellow sea foam is emerging from the ocean, wave
upon wave of jelly-creatures slithering from salt
to shore. Here it comes, a species long cradled in the deep,
shedding fathoms, shedding sea-water, not yet limbed for land.

Spongy-looking, lung-like. On they come. Quivering,
shuddering, sucking at gravity, light, the searing wind.
Never has there been such pain. Excruciating. Addictive.
They must! They must! They will! They will!

They scud, they skate, and each metre more onto the beach
is another bone cell imagining itself out of jelly. Is this joy?
It is joy! Shake, shake! Jelly-creatures conquer the world!
Until the sandbank, its small wall studded with gemstones.

Quartz, topaz, amethyst. Earth-kilned, earth-polished,
each is reversing out of land. Not so as you’d notice, but
plop, plop, eon by eon, they are falling back to the beach.
Still the yellow sea foam comes, and piles in a wobble

at the barrier, puzzling at solidity. Concentrate! Concentrate!
Wings? Wings! The first shreds fly up and over.